Coherent optical manipulation of triplet-singlet states in coupled quantum dots

We show that spin-orbit coupling in a quantum dot molecule allows for coherent manipulation of two electron spin states using Raman transitions. Such two-electron spin states defined by the singlet and triplet states of two exchange coupled quantum dots can have favorable coherence properties. In addition, two of the four metastable ground states in this system can be used as auxiliary states that could facilitate implementation of tasks such as mapping of spin states to that of a single propagating photon. We find that even weak spin-orbit effects -- manifesting themselves as slightly different g-factors for the electron and the hole -- would allow for the coherent Raman coupling of the singlet-triplet states. We also discuss the possibilities for implementing quantum optical techniques for spin preparation and manipulation.